Golden Flow of the Merri Yaluk (2015)
By Joe Joe Orangias and Léuli Eshrāghi with Darcy Jones
Single-channel HD video
9 minutes, 54 seconds
16:9, colour, sound
The waters of the Merri Yaluk witness rituals that bind young people to each other and the landscape in this video. It is at once a sacred source of life for Wurundjeri people and those who came later through settler colonial foray, and a secluded space where young and old interact in liminal, queer ways unbeknownst to heteropatriarchal society. The golden swathes of the creek’s waters and comingling of transferable energies between young people coalesce into a fleeting identity in this place, unbound by external pressures to conform socially or to assert title over Indigenous territories in the marking of space. This video invites the audience to reflect on the unique physical relationship between queers and landscapes, and to consider the possibilities of ephemerally interacting with land to find a haven.
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Island Time: Galveston Artist Residency - The First Four Years cur. Eric Schnell, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (2015 - 2016), Houson
Re-reading the Rainbow cur. Steve Lovett, RM Gallery (2015), Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland